


Friends

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Iron Man 1, Pre-Relationship, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 13:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14106000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She's been working for Tony long enough to tell that this wasn't like most jobs.Normal jobs don't make you wake your boss up for work, or come in early to test his new coffee maker, or help clear out that one night stand who can't seem to take a hint.  Normal jobs don't normally involve your boss giving you acess to every inch of his home (beceause you're trustworthy, Ms. Potts, I can tell) or learning that his favorite midnight meal is fried pickles.It's normal, so when she gets woken up by a phone call one night and hears a bartender asking her to come and pick Tony up before he hurts himself, she isn't even really surprised.





	Friends

It's been a month, and Pepper's already decided that this is the strangest, most stressful job she's ever had.

It's not even Tony's fault, really.  It's just that he doesn't seem to understand the barrier between boss and employee, and seems intent on treating her like she's this old friend that decided to drop in and say hi rather than someone who pops in to make sure he's signing the papers and working on the patents, and, you know, not drinking himself into an alcohol induced coma.  Already, he's tried to force her to go on double dates ( _come on, Pep, he's really cute, look at that ass_ ), made her be taste tester for his admittedly excellent culinary creations, and help him get ready for press conferences like he's a high school girl getting ready for her first date.

Pepper doesn't mind, though, because there are worse things than a boss who can't seem to remember that he's your boss and keeps trying to force you to accept a raise.  She had worked for men who seem to think that the only skill she has is to hike her skirt up higher than she's comfortable with to give the clients some eye candy and bring them all coffee, which sometimes they give back and insist she remakes.  She's been turned into a errand girl, a maid, and a babysitter, made to stay in the office past one in the morning to finish paper work that the boss had dumped on her desk five minutes before closing.  Here, he let's her go home on time and offers to give her days off even though she never takes him, he almost consistently remembers to call her Ms. Potts, and he never raises his voice, not even the time she spilled coffee all over the floor.

Still, there was no denying that this wasn't a normal job.  Normal jobs don't make you help them to bed when they're drunk, or chase their one night stands out the door in the morning.  They don't have you learn how to be both a barista and a bar tender, and they don't require you to sit in the corner of the garage with a fire extinguisher, just in case. 

She knows that this is just a product of the way that Tony had grown up, how he was left without anyone but Stane to reign him in and he never learned to handle the turmoil that somehow swells up inside him, and that he would have been happier as a regular mechanic than one of the bosses.  She knows that sometimes he just cracks under the pressure of the particular life he was forced to lead.

"Tony?"  She's groggy, and dark, and she's pretty sure the screen cracked when the vibration sent it tumbling off her nightstand.  "What's going on?"

It isn't Tony.  It's some bartender from a club she'd never even heard of, one that she's sure wouldn't even let her in through the door.  "You with Tony Stark?"  Pepper didn't know what he meant by with, if he meant that she was there at the club or one of his colleagues, or maybe if she was one of the girls that got to hang around with him for a week before getting kicked to the curb.  "You're going to need to send someone to pick him up."

"Why?"  This wasn't her job, not even close.  She could hang up the phone and go to bed, leave Mr. Stark to his own devices for once, because she is trying to keep this professional.  Going to pick up your boss in the middle of the night is not good for keeping a professional relationship.  "Is he alright?"

"Yeah, he's fine, he just."  There's a crash, and then a drunken yell that most definitely came from Tony about buying a round of drinks for everyone there.  From the sound of it, everyone in the club seemed to like that idea.  "He's had a bit too much.  I'm going to cut him off, and maybe kick him out."

"No, please."  That would be a PR nightmare, one that Stane would yell at her for and that she would have to handle.  "Don't throw him out, I'll be there in thirty minutes.  How much damage could he do?"

It would be more like forty-five, but whatever. She could speed this one time, and Tony could pay for the traffic tickets.

"I'll stick him with the valets out back.  They're playing a round of poker."  And Jesus, Tony was going to bet the tower away in a poker game if she doesn't get there fast enough.  "That's the best I can do, ma'm."

She sighed, pausing in the middle of rummaging through her closet.  If Tony wakes her up in the middle of the night, he can deal with her in sweat pants and an old t-shirt, paparazzi be damned.

 

 

 

"Pepper!"  He looks so happy to see her.  He's also got a cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth, unlit, because he doesn't like smoking but it seemed to fit his mood for the night.  "You came!"  He slapped the guy next to him, who laughed.  They all looked to be all college aged, which meant they probably didn't think to con him out of a few thousand dollars.  She tries to tell herself that that was a good thing. "They didn't think you would."

"Of course I came."  She feels self conscious when he walks over to her, because he is in designer clothes and looking for all the world like he deserved his spot in the TOP ONE HUNDRED HOTTEST GUYS list that People magazine puts on once a year, and here she was, correctly looking like she had stumbled out of bed and threw on a pair of sneakers.  "They were going to throw you out on the street."

_And then you would have found another bar, and another, and another, and we would have had to make a charitable donation to some children's group to make this all go away.  Not to mention the fact that I'd be helping you play hookie for the rest of the week._

"Yeah, Yeah."  He throws his jacket at her, and she catches it.  She's gotten used to having to predict what he's going to do before he does it.  Pepper's found that it's the only way she can keep up with him.   "I would have survived."

Pepper rolled her eyes at him.  "We've got to go, Tony."  She wasn't going to drag him out of here, but it would be a close thing.  "My car's in a no parking zone."

"You drove yourself?  What about Happy?"  His brows were furrowed, and Pepper wonders if that's what Happy is here for, to drag him out of nasty situations and dump him into bed.  Surely he'd be better at it than Pepper.  "Whatever, boys.  I got to go.  Probably'll be back tomorrow."

"You won't."

He wouldn't.  Pepper would lock the whole tower down if she had too.  

(And she can do that now.  He gave her the passcodes, but that was probably a sure way to lose them.)

Tony smiled at her, and then winked at all of them.  And then he proceeded to dump the contents of his wallet down on the table while they all stared at him.  

"See you soon boys."  He says, giving some sort of salute, and manages to walk out of the room without running into the doorway or falling onto his face, leaving Pepper to trail after him, promising herself that one day, she'll manage to impress on him that an assistant is not a 24 job.

 

 

He sits in the back out of habit, leaving her to navigate through the traffic back to the tower by herself.

Tony's growing sulkier as time goes on, maybe because he was mad that his fun was over, or maybe because he was losing the bit of relief that his drinking seems to give him.  He always gets sulky as it all wears off, like coming back to life seems to wind him down.  

"You know, you're a really hard boss to get mad at."  She finds herself saying, because the radio in this thing doesn't work and the silence was killing her.  He doesn't even respond to her, just stretches out across the back like he's intending to fall asleep and stares out the window.  "Because you're actually very nice to me.  You don't make me stay late.  You don't call me any demeaning nicknames.  You don't tell me what to wear or how to wear it.  But this isn't-,"  A car veers in front of her and she slams on the breaks, making Tony fly forward into the seats and topple down to the floor of the car.  "I mean, I shouldn't really be the one you're calling for this kind of thing, Tony."

"Don't you want to come and hang out with me?"  As always, Pepper found herself unwillingly impressed with how well Tony can handle himself while drunk.  "I think it would be fun, you and me out on the town, living it up.  We could find you a hot date, find me a hot date, and then compare notes in the morning.  Maybe switch, if you're into that sort of thing."

He's gotten sort of obsessed with finding her a date, but Pepper tries not to take it personally.  He does the same thing with Happy and Stane, and probably doesn't know how to turn it off.

"This isn't healthy."  She smacks down on the steering wheel, because now they were stuck in traffic, and this is the last place she wanted to be.  "Not for me, not for you, and haven't you picked up on the fact that I am your assistant?  That is as far as our relationship goes.  We are not friends, we are not drinking buddies, and I surely not the person you are going to call every time you get yourself drunk and need to be picked up.  IT's time for you to grow up, Tony."

He's quiet, after that.  She can see him watching her in the rearview mirror, like he's waiting for her to keep going.  He also looks a little hurt.

"You called me Tony."  He says finally, right as they finally get moving again.  She can see the tower coming into view, and tells herself that she only has to make it that far.  "That's not very professional."

Hypocrite.  Bloody, horrible hypocrite, who drags her out of bed at two in the morning and doesn't even give her an apology, but he's right, maybe, they have crossed the line from boss and assistant a long time ago and she should probably just give up trying to stop it.  "I'm sorry, I-,"

"None needed, Ms. Potts."  She pulls up to the end of the driveway and lets himself out, the tower lighting up and unlocking as he gets to the front step.  He turns to wave at her, then disappears through the door.

 

 

 

Pepper sits in the car for a long time.

She feels bad, which is stupid, because she shouldn't.  She had every right to say what she did, every right to make him understand that she is not here because she is his friend, that she is here because she has a job and he needs someone to look after him.

 _But is that it, really?_ A voice inside her whispers.   _You could have just called Happy, or Stane.  This wasn't your job._

But she didn't call them.  She didn't call them because she was worried, and not because she couldn't stand the PR mess it would make.  She was worried because it was Tony, and he likes to think that he can be friends with everyone he meets, using his money as some sort of shield between himself and his feelings.  And he's such a hard person  _not_ to care about, so really it was inevitable that looking at him when he's in one of his moods would make her chest ache.  Being around him makes her want to fix everything for him until people decide they want to leave him alone.

People who aren't friends don't stay after work to watch some stupid superhero movie just because Tony looks lonely sitting on the couch by himself.  People who aren't friends don't come early so he can test out his new waffle maker.  People who are not friends do not feel comfortable walking into his room in the morning to wake him up, or give advice about girls, or can tell how he is feeling just by how many cups of coffee he drinks.

"Damn it."  She smacks her steering wheel and throws the car into park, yanking the key out of the ignition.  "Damn it."

 

 

 

He's curled up on the couch.

It makes him look like he's someone much younger, and that makes her think of how it must have been for him growing up, stuck in this big house all alone with no one to look out for him, shipped off to school when most people are still just learning how to navigate the world of friends and girls and grown up life, who had to deal with his grief and guilt all alone and suddenly found the weight of the world pressing down on him.  It doesn't matter how smart someone is, that takes a toll.

Tony hasn't had people to lean on.  And the people he thought he could count on, always had to leave.  She didn't want to be one of those people.

"I'm sorry."  Pepper doesn't announce herself.  Jarvis already had the moment she got out of her car.  "That was rude of me, what I said in the car."

"Unprofessional?"  He says, not looking at her.  "Because I have to tell you Ms. Potts, it's pretty unprofessional to just waltz into your boss' house at this hour."

She had forgotten how little he's willing to give when he's angry.  He's a stubborn man.

(Not angry.  He's hurt, and when he's hurt, he shuts himself off, shuts him down.)

"Listen to me."  She sits down beside him, and finally, he turns to look at her.  In this light, she can see the shadows under his eyes and has to wonder how long it's been since he's gotten a good night's sleep.  (The bad part of her, he one that is still checking things off on her to-do list, wonders why he can't get a few patents worked on with the hours of sleep he's clearly not getting.)  "I was wrong.  That's what I'm trying to tell you."

"No."  He looks exhausted, bone achingly tired, the one that makes you want to go to sleep and never wake up again.  "You were right.  Assistants shouldn't have to drag their boss home from a bar.  It's not your job."

"I didn't go because it was my job."  She kicks of her shoes and curls her feet up underneath her.  "I came because I was worried about you.  Because I'm your friend, and that's something that friends do."

"You shouldn't be my friend."  Tony was still staring at her, like he was waiting for her to leave.  "Working here was the worst mistake of your life, Ms. Potts."

"I get to decide that.  And I don't think working here is a mistake.  You...."  She didn't know what to say, or how to make this better, or how to make that look leave his face.  And still, that voice in her head, saying  _that this is not my job._

 _I know it's not my job,_ she thinks back, just as savagely.   _But maybe I want to, okay?_

"You're a good boss.  And you're a good man."  She was giving too much away, she knew, things that no assistant should be dumping on her boss.  But he's not just her boss, he's her friend.  A friend who pays her to make sure he signs papers and shows up at meetings on time.  They could work with that.  "The other people I worked for weren't.  So coming here, it's like, a vacation from all the assholes out there."

He snorts.  "You clearly don't know me that well, Ms. Potts."

"I know enough."  She got up, grabbing her shoes by the heels, and gave him one last look.  Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she bent down to kiss him on the forehead, smoothing his hair back.  She doubts he'd be able to remember it in the morning.  "And maybe it's time you call me Pepper."

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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